


show me the stars

by the_other_lutece_sister



Category: Lost in Space (TV 2018), Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Lost in Space AU, Other, Robots, propunk - Freeform, sestre - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-10-23 03:03:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17675216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_other_lutece_sister/pseuds/the_other_lutece_sister
Summary: The Earth is dying, and The Resolute is carrying the chosen to Alpha Centuri to colonise other planets. Sarah Manning is on board when it is attacked by some kind of alien robots, and ends up loooooost in spaaaace. Continuing my mission to make everything about the True Triumverate™





	1. Chapter 1

Outside the canteen window, the black emptiness of space was decorated with too many stars to count. Inside, Sarah was collecting trays and indifferently wiping down tables when the alarm went off. She looked up, blinking stupidly at the blue light flashing above the doorway. A drill? Shite, what was the bloody protocol again? She shrugged and dropped the pile of trays with a bang.

 

“Whatever, beats clean-up duty,” she muttered, and tossed the cloth in her hand on top of the trays. She was almost at the door when the announcement began.

 

_Emergency evacuation. Emergency evacuation. Please proceed to your allocated shuttle. Emergency evacuation. Emergency evacuation. Please proceed -_

The lighting dimmed, then glowed red.

 

 _“_ Oh, _fuck_.” Sarah started to run.

 

She was only a grunt, not one of the chosen, bound for the shining new world of Alpha Centauri - not smart enough, not rich enough, not _useful_ enough. But she’d talked herself into a job on the Resolute - even the best and brightest needed cleaning up after, and some of the recruiters for the spacecraft were regulars at the bar she tended.

Who’d ever thought a kid from the streets of Brixton would get to travel between the stars?

She’d never expected _this_. She should’ve though, should have known her typical bad luck would find her even out in space.

People were moving fast down the curving corridors, towards the central hub where the shuttles were docked. Multiple elevators were pinging open and immediately filling up. Sarah reached one just as it was closing and skidded in, elbows jostling.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered.

 

The woman she was pressed up against looked down her nose at Sarah, then back up at the ceiling. Her hair was smooth and short and looked red in the emergency lighting. Everything looked red - except her lipstick, which looked black. The elevator whirred to a stop, the doors opened, and the woman extricated herself from the crowded space with an air of relief, running a hand down the front of her fitted tunic, then striding off without a backward glance.

 

One of the stuck-up bitches bound for the new world, Sarah thought, sneering after her. Who the hell wore _heels_ on a bloody spaceship? The next level down was Sarah and she leapt out of the lift, digging in the pockets of her overalls for the code-key. She started down the corridor, then stopped, frowning, as she heard screams.

A man ran past, panting, not even looking at Sarah as he shouted _run!_

 

That stupidly stubborn part of her brain that refused to do something _just_ because someone had told her to made her flatten herself against the wall instead, and peer around the gently curving surface. There was a junction up ahead, where this corridor was crossed by another, and a lot of movement.

More people running, not like the orderly movement upstairs but panicked, desperate, the red lights smearing their faces.

Something exploded.

There was a noise like...thrumming. It made Sarah’s gut feel weird and her ears too. She put her hands over them, but it was inside her skull. A few more people ran past at speed. One was clutching their arm. Sarah stared. The overalls looked burnt -  so did the skin showing through the torn fabric, red and raw.

The thrumming sound got louder, there was an addition of sharp metallic banging and then…

Sarah’s mouth dropped open, and she tried to push herself into the wall.

It was big. It was metal. It had what resembled a head and arms and legs, but it definitely was not human. It raised an arm - Sarah counted four arms, if you could call them that - and what passed for a hand glowed in the centre, a whining sound growing louder until a energy pulse shot out and hit a woman who’d ran left into Sarah’s corridor. She was lifted off her feet and flew forward, then slammed into the wall opposite and fell to the floor, unmoving.

The sound of sizzling fabric cut through the background noise, accompanied by the smell of burnt flesh.

 

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. Sarah began to back up quietly.

 

The thing walked forward, head moving back and forth, scanning the corridor. Where a face should be was an oval screen of tiny lights in continual motion, glowing bright red. Sarah knew that even under normal lighting, it would still be bright red.

 

 _A robot?_ she thought, _a...a...space robot? An alien robot? Oh, I’m not gettin’ paid enough for this shite. Nobody ever said anything about bloody alien robots!_

 

There was something weirdly...organic about it, though, the way it moved like a spider, the body looking grown rather than built, like layers of muscles and sinews made out of metal. It had a torso, with one set of arms at the midsection, and the other sprouting out of the top of the shoulders like a horribly misshapen angel.

The ‘face’ swirled as the thing looked towards Sarah. For a seemingly endless second it seemed to examine her while she stared back, wide-eyed and frozen. The two top arms rose and fell, like a bird stretching its wings, and then the robot-thing turned, and its legs, all metal segments and glistening wires, propelled it down the other corridor, towards the screams.

Sarah sagged in sudden relief, suddenly aware her overalls were patched with sweat, and she picked at the fabric as she sidled backwards, pulling it away from her skin.

Her shuttle lay beyond the junction, and she had no desire to try her chances with that _thing_ again, and she needed to get there _now_ , and - her hand felt the indent of a door. It slid open silently as she touched the panel next to it. Emergency Use Only! a sign on the wall of the little round alcove read and Sarah grinned, the adrenaline flowing now and making her feel like she could run for miles. She grabbed the rungs of the ladder in front of her and began to climb.

Even with the buzz of energy, she was panting by the time she got to the next level, slammed through the door and ran down the red-lit corridor. It seemed eerily silent under the alarm and the calmly authoritative voice of the announcement system. There was an explosion, but it was far enough away to ignore. So she did.

Skidding around the corner, she tripped over the woman crouched on the floor and landed on her hands and knees. Sharp pains shot up every joint.

 

“Bloody hell, what the - ” she snapped as she turned, scrambling to her feet and stopped. “You? Shouldn’t you be in yer shuttle already?” It was the woman from the elevator, the one with the snooty face. She was balancing herself with one hand on the wall, and shooting a death glare at Sarah that made the robot downstairs look almost huggable.

She was next to a man who was...oh. He was dead, sagging against the wall, eyes open, but dull.  Sarah’s mouth twisted, and the woman stood up gracefully, quickly sliding something into a pocket. A hand ran over her already smooth hair.

 

“What happened?” Sarah asked. There were no visible injuries on the body. The woman hesitated, then spoke in a clipped British accent that immediately got Sarah’s hackles up.

 

“Heart attack.” She indicated the alarm, the red lights making her eyes dark pools. “The strain was...too much.” She sniffed. “One _would_ think they’d screen out this kind of weakness.”

 

Sarah blinked. _Heartless bitch_ , she thought, before another, closer explosion made jump started her legs.

 

“Get to yer bloody shuttle,” she shouted back over her shoulder, “before the aliens get up here!” The woman’s expression barely shifted, just the barest arch of one eyebrow indicated she had heard Sarah’s words, but certainly didn’t place any credence in them. She slipped a hand into a pocket and checked the card she pulled out, then calmly turned on one heel, and walked in the opposite direction.

Sarah ran.

This level was a mirror image of the one below, but the junction was clear, and she practically slid down the next ladder. There were still people screaming, but further away, and she slipped back out into the corridor, trying to ignore the bodies a few feet away. Her shuttle should be just ahead, just...she dug through pockets and pulled out the card-pass, checking the number...here. The beeping of the door opening seemed too loud, even with the alarm still going off, but she jumped inside and jabbed the button repeatedly until the door swooshed shut again.

She closed her eyes and ran her hands over her face, getting her breathing back to normal. When she opened them, the first thing she saw was the guy sitting at the control panel.

The second thing she noticed was the sound coming out of the box on the chair beside him.

“Hey.” He looked older than her but not by much, dark hair that managed to be as messy as her own although much shorter, and a cocky smile. Bright orange straps already criss-crossed his overalls - blue, which meant mechanic. Mechanic meant he knew how to drive the shuttle and Sarah started to feel a bit more optimistic about her chances.

Sarah nodded at him, then looked at the box, which was also strapped in.

 

“Is that a bloody _chicken_?” she said incredulously, bending forward with her hands on her knees and trying to look into the box. A little red eye stared back out at her.

_Bok!_

She laughed. It made sense, now she thought about it. You needed more than just people to build a brand new civilisation.

 

“That’s Debbie,” the guy informed her. “I’m Don. You should probably get your arse strapped in ‘cause we’re about to - “

 

There was a distant huge booming roar that got closer, and louder, and Sarah could feel the shuttle shaking around her.

 

“Fuck,” she moaned, swaying for a moment until deciding that crawling was a safer bet. “The aliens are gonna blow us all up.” The floor trembled under her palms.

 

Don stared at her, while Debbie began to cluck furiously.

 

“You didn’t just say aliens, right?” he said slowly, “I mean, maybe you already hit your head on the way here and now you’re...y’know, concussed?”

 

Part of Sarah’s brain noted: _lived in New York long enough to pick up an accent but isn’t from there -_ her ability to read people had won her a lot of bets in down time on the station - as she reached the row of seats and pulled herself up, yanking at the straps in a panic. The sound of Debbie trying to stab her way out of her box with her beak didn’t help.

 

“Nah, I definitely said aliens, mate.” After some fumbling the buckle snapped and she planted her boots firmly on the still-shaking floor. “Alien bloody robots. Killin’ people. I saw ‘em.” She turned her head and met his eyes. “Let’s get the hell out of here”

 

There was another explosion, closer this time, and the shuttle shook. Debbie went ominously quiet.

 

Don was already inputting the launch sequence, although his face said that the concept of killer alien robots was an idea he wanted to continue arguing about at a later date, preferably over a lot of beer.

 

 _God_ , Sarah thought as she clutched at the seatbelts crossing her chest, _I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna_

 

There was a humming sound, a series of clunks and beeps, and then the shuttle was zooming along the access tunnel and out into the vastness of space.

Outside the windshield that wrapped around the front half of the shuttle, a million million stars dusted the sky with glitter.

Despite the low-grade terror that still flooded her system, Sarah’s mouth stretched into a grin. She’d never gotten used to the sight of all those stars. By the time she’d been born, the atmosphere was so messed up that the stars were barely visible even outside the cities. She had actually liked canteen duty because of the huge viewing window that stretched along one wall.

 

The shuttle shook as something bounced off the hull. Sarah and Don both watched as the hunk of burning metal sailed past. It was followed by others.

 

“What the hell happened back there?” Don sounded angry, but the undercurrent of fear was obvious to Sarah.

 

“Told ya. Killer alien robots.” She watched another piece of debris go spinning into space. “How’d you even make it to the shuttle without runnin’ into it?”

 

Don’s face went from doubtful to defensive.

 

“I was already in here when the alarm went off,” he said, “Checking supplies.” Then he shrugged and tapped at one of the screens on the panel in front of him. “Huh.” he tilted his head back and checked the two screens above him. “That’s...weird.”

 

_Bok-bok-bok?_

 

Sarah side-eyed Debbie before squinting up at the screens herself. Just numbers and symbols that made no sense to her, but the red flashing light....that was pretty bloody clear.

 

“Shit, they followed us?” She looked around wildly, as if an escape route would present itself, but there wasn’t anywhere to run to in space.

 

“What? No!” Don swiped fingers across the screens but the light kept flashing red. “It’s some kind of...anomaly?” He tapped the screen in front of him, then slapped the side of it. The beeping increased in speed, and Sarah realised the shuttle was moving backwards.

 

“What the fuck are you doin’, mate? We don’t wanna go back there!” Anger made her voice shake a little. At least, she hoped it sounded like anger.

 

“I’m not…” Don yelled back at her, “Something is pulling us!” The light flashed, painting the shuttle interior with that awful red glow. He frowned at the monitors. “Look. I’m a mech, not a darn physicist or whatever. But I think _that_ is what they call a wormhole…” He nodded towards the window.

 

The shuttle had slowly rotated so they were facing back towards the Resolute.

 What was left of it.

 The cylinder that made up the central part of the spaceship was in pieces. Parts of it were burning and there were still shuttles shooting out on all sides, but a huge chunk of it was just...gone. Sarah gaped. Her mouth opened even wider when she saw the shimmering tunnel of light over to the left.

Every screen, every light in the shuttle went dead. In the sudden dark silence, Sarah could hear Debbie scratching nervously against the box, making subdued sounds that she assumed were chicken for ‘what the hell’.  

 

“Oh, this ain’t good,” Don muttered. He blindly stabbed at buttons before giving up

 

She could see the other shuttles go dark, one by one, and start falling towards that weird shifting light. It was weirdly beautiful, blues and purples and greens. Sarah had seen clips of the Northern Lights - her foster ma had shown her, with an uncharacteristically wistful expression on her face. And that’s what the wormhole looked like - the northern lights wrapped around itself, with a core too bright to see.

Sarah swallowed, and tried to keep her voice even.

“Hey. Don,” she said, staring at the round shapes of the other shuttles disappearing into the tunnel. “What happens when you, uh, go through a wormhole?” She squinted as they got closer, and the shuttle interior glowed with colours. Debbie gave one last loud _BOK_!, and then fell silent. When Sarah turned her head, Don was staring out the windows as well.

“Guess we’re gonna find out.” He met her eyes and shrugged in a way he probably meant to look casual, but she could see the tension in his shoulders, and his knuckles were white where they gripped the armrests. He noticed her gaze and visibly relaxed, moving one arm so it lay across Debbie’s box. _No te pongas nervioso, que todo va a salir bien,_ he murmured into the air-holes, then looked back up at Sarah quizically. “Hey, what was your name again?”

“Sarah,” she replied, going back to staring at the ever-nearing tunnel of light, her own hands clenching and unclenching on the straps. “Worked up in the mess. This…” she jerked her chin at the wormhole. “I didn't - ” She bit her lip. Her stomach was flipping around now, and she couldn’t keep her feet still, feeling like a rat in a trap.

 

The light was brighter, blinding, as the shuttle drifted into the outer rim of the wormhole. Beside her, Debbie’s box rustled, and Don muttered some more words in Spanish, either to the chicken or to himself, Sarah didn’t know. It felt like the shuttle was moving faster now, faster, faster, and the pressure in her head was growing heavier until she wanted to stick something sharp in her ear to make it pop. There was the sense that time was moving faster than was possible, but also that it stretched out like an infinitely long elastic band, and they were at all points along it at once.

  
Sarah placed the heels of her hands over her eyes and thought about Mrs S, still stuck on a dying earth. _She’ll be so pissed off when she hears about this, she’s gonna go spare, she was so proud of me when I told her, she didn’t say but I could tell, fuck, she’s gonna -_

 

The shuttle flipped over, spun around, and disappeared into the circling light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Don explore, and Sarah finds more than she bargained for.

It was a billion years later - or possibly just a matter of seconds - when Sarah’s eyes fluttered open.

She immediately squeezed them shut again, the white glare coming from the window feeling like a blade of ice right through her temples. When she carefully opened them again and squinted, the white glare settled into a vast expanse of snow, broken up by huge jagged rocks angled towards a distant horizon. It was an almost incomprehensible sight - back home, snow was like the stars, something seen in videos, not real life.

 She tore her gaze away and gingerly patted at herself to make sure all her bits were where they should be. Arms, check. Legs, good. Head, still at the top of her body, but barely. Feet still at the other end. Stomach...definitely still in the middle ‘cause she could feel it flipping around a little.

 

“Je...sus,” came a groan from her right, “Do you feel like you just went through a mincer and then got slapped together again, or was that just me?”

 

_Bok-bok-bok._

 

Taking a deep breath and opening her eyes again, Sarah turned her head carefully in case it fell off, and looked Don up and down. At some point, the power had come back on, and screens blinked around them.

 

“I need a drink,” she said. “Feels like someone tried to turn my head all way ‘round.” Raking her fingers through her hair and rubbing at the base of her neck, she added “At least we’re both in one piece so...shit, where’s Debbie?” The lid was lying on the floor and the box was empty.

 

_Bok? Bok- bok-bok._

 

Don looked panicked until he spotted the chicken perched atop a screen that was now hanging by some wires and swaying back and forth slightly.

 

“Hey, you,” he clucked his tongue soothingly at Debbie a few times. “I think she’s okay.”

 

 _Bok,_ agreed Debbie, turning her little caramel-coloured head to study him with one red eye and ruffling her feathers.

 

“Where the hell are we,” Sarah breathed as she stared out at the snow again. “Did we…just land back on Earth?” Even as she said it, she knew in her gut they hadn’t. Something about the landscape was - off. Probably the fact that there seemed to be more than one moon, and both of them were a lot closer than she was comfortable with. Were they even moons or other planets or -

 

“You need help with that seatbelt or what?” Don’s voice broke into her train of thought and she shook her head, instantly regretting it as pain shot up her neck. She thumbed at the catch and it clunked open. Don was already up and fiddling with various buttons while murmuring to Debbie, who watched every move he made with keen interest.

 

Sarah stretched as she stood, and groaned. _This must be what whiplash feels like_ , she thought. Looking out at the huge rock formations, she figured they were lucky the shuttle hadn’t cashed into one of them, and been ripped open like a sardine can.

 

“Where do you reckon we _are_?”

 

Don shrugged, and turned to another screen filled with figures Sarah didn’t understand.

 

“From what I can tell, that wormhole spat us out into another galaxy.” He pointed at a diagram. “The computer can give us a map, sort of, but we don’t know where we are in relation to where we _were._ Or how to get back there.” He paused to scratch Debbie just behind the small red comb on her head. “For now, we’re lost.”

 

Sarah stared at him, then out the window again, then back at Don.

 

“Right,” she said blankly. “Now I really need a drink.”

 

Don’s face took on a speculative look, as if measuring her up for something, then crossed over to the area behind the seats. Sarah hadn’t paid much attention when she’d ran on board, but it looked like a wall of storage units, all strapped in. Don wrestled one of the bottom crates out of the wall and punched in a code to unlock it. Reaching into a mass of packing fibre, he grinned up at Sarah and pulled out a bottle.

Sarah laughed in disbelief and took the whiskey from his outstretched hand.

 

“Cheers, mate,” she said, unscrewing the lid and taking a swig. “Let me guess...this isn’t part of the official supply, yeah?” She upended the bottle again, and the handed it back, wiping her sleeve across her mouth. “s’ good shit.”

 

Don took a smaller sip, and grimaced.

 

“Don’t know what you mean,” he answered with overt innocence.

 

Sarah laughed again and flipped him the lid.

 

“I know a smuggler when I see one,” she told him. “My foster ma could teach you a thing or two.” Her heart softly thumped against her ribcage as Mrs S’s sharp blue eyes flashed before her. _She’ll be so worried. Not for the first time but maybe it’s worse ‘cause she knows where I am this time. Where I was, anyway._

 

“Huh.” Don looked sheepish for a moment. Then he frowned. “Look, there were a lot of other shuttles that got sucked through that thing. If we end up, y’know, making contact with any of them, can you, y’know,” he leant in slightly and lowered his voice. “Keep this on the down low?“

 

Sarah made a zipping motion across her mouth. His shoulders relaxed, and he raised the bottle to her before tucking it away. For some reason the disapproving face of that awful woman back on the Resolute drifted through her mind. Now, _there_ was one that would be a stickler for the rules and protocol, even out here. _Bet she still liked a drink though - bloody fancy martinis or some shit.  
_The whiskey had spread a comforting warmth throughout her body, along with a restlessness that was beginning to make the enclosed space chafe a little.

 

“The good news is,” said Don, sounding a bit more chipper himself, “the air is breathable. The oxygen levels are slightly higher than on Earth, but we should be fine without suiting up.” He scratched at his chin, dark stubble already showing. “Might want to see what we have warmth-wise though. Can you believe there’s actually _snow_ out there?” He pulled out another crate, opening it to reveal stacks of vacuum sealed clothing, and dug out two bags, tossing one to Sarah.

When she managed to unzip it, the fabric expanded into a olive green padded jacket that reached her knees when she put it on. Don chuckled, brown eyes crinkling up, but turned it into a throat-clearing when Sarah glared at him.

  
_Not my bloody fault they made clothes for bloody giants_ , she muttered, feeling like she was a scrawny little kid again, wrapped up in a duvet. Next was a communicator that strapped around her wrist, and a small food and water pack that easily fit in one of the multiple pockets. Gloves went into another pocket, some sort of mini-tool kit in another. Sarah fidgeted as she was taken through a step-by-step explanation of how the communicator also worked as a mapping device, and how to use it.

Don’s jacket fit well enough that he could strap his backpack on, after making sure Debbie could fit. She settled into the top of the bag with little fuss, her head poking out like a small feathered sentinel.

 

Sarah was shifting from foot to foot, wondering how a damn chicken was calmer than she was, itching to get out of the shuttle. If they really were stuck on this planet, she figured they may as well get used to it.

Once they were outside, the sharp, frigid air made her eyes water and it almost hurt to breathe, but not in the way it had back on Earth. The air here was cold but clean, so clean and fresh that she could feel it curling throughout her body like tendrils of light.

After a few minutes, Sarah realised she was grinning.

The two of them walked in silence for while, heading towards the closest rocky outcrop, Don reasoning that they’d have a better view of their surrounds from the top of it - maybe spot some other survivors. The snow crunched under their boots. After the initial thrill, it hadn’t taken long for both Sarah and Don to realise that the snow, as beautiful as it looked, was a pain in the arse to actually move in.

In places it was a few feet deep, and they’d waded through. The legs of Sarah’s overalls were damp and she was glad of the over-large jacket now. The closer they got to the rocks, though, the shallower the snow got. Patches of rock began to appear underfoot, and occasionally some sort of plant that looked like moss, but in colours that made the ground look like someone had tossed handfuls of jewels on it - deep greens and bright blues and vibrant reds and golden yellows - all shining against the white snow and steel-grey rock.

The planets in the sky were lower now, one barely showing above the horizon, the other hanging above it with a faint glow. There was light enough to see their way and it didn’t seem to be getting any darker, but if there was a sun - or two - it was hidden from their view by the mountain behind them. By sheer luck, the shuttle had come down on just the right angle to slide along a stretch of snow between the jagged outcrops of rock, coming to rest at the mountain base. The snow had melted and reformed into a long icy streak, shining like a mirror when Sarah turned to look back at how far they walked.

 

Ahead of her, Don kept his eyes on the goal, and Debbie kept her eyes on Sarah, the small feathered head completely still as the backpack bobbed up and down, and making her feel like the chicken somehow knew every single stupid decision she’d made in her entire life.

 

 _Shut up_ , she thought, more at herself than Debbie, _just a chicken, not a bleedin’ oracle._

 

 _Bok,_ said Debbie urgently, just before Sarah stepped into a patch of snow that was deeper than it looked. There was a cracking sound that echoed across the silent landscape, and Don turned just in time to see Sarah disappear into the icy ground with a drawn-out _fuuuuuuuuu_

 

⭒  ⭒  ⭒

  


Sarah had felt her foot go right through...something - ice, rotten wood, some weird alien quicksand maybe - and then she was falling down a sort of tunnel. At first it was dim, and narrow, and her hands scrabbled at the cold stony surface, only to find it quickly changed to slippery ice. There was no time for her to think, only react, and a breathless stream of _fuckfuckfuck_ spilled out of her mouth as she continued downwards.

  
The tunnel widened a little, and turned from a shaft into a slope, and memories flashed by on her eyelids _click-click-click_ of the first time Mrs S had taken her to a park and she’d gone on the slide a dozen times in a row, that feeling of surrendering to gravity and skidding down and around the curved metal, close to flying... Just as she felt like she was going to slide down into the centre of the planet and be lost forever, the slope became flatter and wider and more open, and then Sarah came to a slow stop up against a grassy mound, blinking up at the sunlight filtering through huge green trees.

For a second she just lay her head back and stared upwards at the sliver of sky between a wall of ice and a towering forest. It was blue, just like Earth’s sky used to be. The trees were intensely green; the greenest things that Sarah had ever seen. She sat up, and groaned as every single muscle she had protested. Still, the padded coat seemed to have protected her somewhat and she was mostly dry, and when she pushed back the sleeve and prodded at the communicator on her wrist, it beeped and lit up.

 

“Bloody brilliant,” she muttered and then louder, “Hey! Hey, Don? Can you hear me?”

 

_Beep-beep_

 

“Sarah? You okay?” Don’s voice crackled with relief. “Where are you?”

 

“Uhhhh...down?” Sarah said into her arm. “There’s a lot of trees, and - “ she took a few steps towards the forest. “ - plants ‘n shit. Warmer too,” she added, pushing her hair back and flapping the coat open to let some air in.

 

“Can you climb back up?” Sarah snorted loudly at the suggestion. “I’ll take that as a no then...look, don’t wander off too far.” He was obviously still moving forwards, his words mixed with heavy breathing. “I’m almost at the top. Then I’ll come and find you, right?” There was a faint _bok-bok-bok_ in the background, as if Debbie was _also_ telling her what to do.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sarah said wearily, fighting down the impulse to argue just for the sake of it. Don was reminding her of Mrs S in more ways than one. “Just...don’t take too long,” she added, glancing up again and wondering if it really was getting darker or she was just imagining it.

 

“I won’t,” Don’s voice said. “Stay safe.”

 

 _Transmission ended_ , blinked the communicator in red light, then went dark again. She stared at it for a second, wishing she’d paid more attention to Don’s endless instructions, then shrugged and pulled the coat sleeve over it.

Sarah stepped into the forest.

 

The trees went on as far as she could make out in every direction ahead of her, and there were bushes everywhere, long thin green leaves curving upwards and outwards. The tree trunks were scattered with outgrowths of fungi in brilliant oranges and yellows, with scalloped edges. Some of them looked big enough to use as steps, but when she tried her weight on one, it sagged and then broke, revealing an interior of pale gold. Other plants had broad leaves striped in red and green, their fleshy-looking vibrant purple flowers nodding heavily on bent stalks.

The air was less cold down here, but just as fresh, tinged with pine, and something faintly smokey.

There was birdsong far above her - or what sounded like birds. She glanced up nervously, wondering how big alien birds were and what they _ate_. There was movement up there, but she could only see small bird-shaped things flitting about. She flinched as something brushed her cheek, but it was only a butterfly. Several butterflies. They danced around her, pale blue, and drifted down towards the flowers.

When they landed, their wings curled and uncurled like tiny lace scrolls. Sarah breathed out a laugh. They looked like fairies out of one of Mrs S’s old books. She sat down on a log covered with bright green moss and watched them for a few minutes, but she couldn’t stop her leg jittering up and down.

A bright gold light passed her vision and she blinked. It was followed by another, and then a dozen more, floating through the air. Jumping up, she turned around slowly in a circle, watching the little gold lights disappear as they touched to the ground.

They were ashes.

More came from ahead of her and to the left, and she could see a faint glow. Chewing at her lip, she glanced backwards at the wall of ice, then back at the glow. It didn’t look too far away, and Don could track her with the communicator, right? She followed the trail of floating ash through the trees to a rocky ridge that looked down onto a small clearing.  
Metal shone dully in the light of a few scattered fires, half buried in the dirt.

Sarah stepped forwards involuntarily, mouth forming around a shout, before she realised that it wasn’t another shuttle, or even one of the bigger ships, the Jupiters, the ones that were built for families to live in. The metal was somehow oily-looking, etched with geometric shapes. It looked familiar because it looked like -

There was the snap of breaking branches somewhere behind her.

Sarah spun around and ducked behind a tree, hands splayed on the smooth brown bark as she held her breath, straining to hear over the sound of her heart thumping in her ears. She inched her head sideways, scanning the forest, inwardly cursing the thick greenness that had seemed so beautiful ten minutes ago. What else was hiding out there?

There was nothing. And then, suddenly, there was _something_. She jumped as a leg stepped out from behind a tree about twenty feet away. It gleamed. Sarah put one hand over her mouth to stop the scream climbing up her throat.

It was the robot.

Another leg appeared, a little unsteady. Sarah stared in horrified fascination at the lower half of the robot as it stamped forward, because there was no upper half. The robot ended at whatever passed for a waist, wires and cables sprouting upwards like a fountain.

 

 _Oh shite,_ she thought, _can it hear me? See me?_ Then, with dread _\- where’s the other half??_

 

Turning her head slowly, she checked the crash site again but there was no movement there except for the small fires which had joined together and were spreading out. Towards her.

 

 _Fuck_.

 

She stayed down and edged along the bushes that lined the ridge, trying to be silent and freezing every time she brushed against a leaf. When she checked the position of the half-robot for the tenth time and couldn’t see it anywhere, she froze, her fingers digging into the ground and releasing the sharp scent of soil. When there was a shuffling sound directly behind her, she didn’t even look.

Sarah ran.

She stumbled through the bushes and into the trees, leaping over the roots that twined across the ground, and running through waist-high bushes, and ducking under low branches. She could hear heavy, stomping noises behind her and when she risked a glance backwards, saw the half-robot getting closer. It looked ridiculous, three-clawed feet flashing as it ran, but Sarah wasn’t amused in the slightest.

Just ahead of her was a tree with branches low enough for her to climb and she scrambled up, coat swinging around her knees. The branches spiraled upwards around the tree, like a staircase, and Sarah hurriedly moved from one to the next, until she reached one wide enough to sit on. Pausing and trying to catch her breath, she kept looking down. The legs stepped onto the lowest branch, managing one foot but slipping when it attempted the next. Jumping onto the branch didn’t work either, the legs unable to balance themselves, and so they remained on the ground, somehow radiating frustration and confusion.

Sarah laughed in a breathless way and made a rude gesture with her fingers.

There was a loud hissing sound behind her, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled just before she felt something touch her. She shot sideways, grabbing the tree trunk to stop from falling, and craned her neck to see sharp metallic fingers still holding a few dark strands of hair.

 

 _Oh,_ she thought grimly, _that’s where you are._

 

The other half of the robot was perched on the end of the branch she sat on, head tilted to the side, the oval face-screen filled with those tiny red lights. It dropped its hand, but the upper two arms were raised up, the fingers that were really more like knives whirring around and snapping at her. It seemed to be stuck, wedged into the thick, splintered branch, and when it reached for her again, Sarah was out of range. She pressed her back into the tree trunk, breathing rapidly and watching the red lights.

They swarmed in patterns, Sarah saw now, they swirled and danced, and glowed and faded. The glow intensified and again an arm stretched out, metal shifting as the three elongated fingers strained to touch Sarah’s face. She tried to move further backwards into the tree, aware of the legs still waiting patiently on the ground. The robot sagged forwards, head drooping. There was a noise like a machine sighing.

 Sarah could hear the fire crackling in the distance, hissing and popping as it advanced. Everything smelled of smoke. There was movement throughout the forest as birds and insects and whatever else lived here ran from the flames. Something thudded as it ran, something that sounded big as it crashed through the undergrowth, but she couldn’t catch sight of it.

 

Jesus, she muttered, trying to watch both ends of the robot at once, I’m gonna burn to death. Or the bloody robot is gonna kill me and then we’re _both_ gonna burn. She carefully lifted her arm and pushed the sleeve up, frowning at the communicator. When she jabbed at a button, the red bars flickered across the small screen, then froze, and a NO SIGNAL lit up in red.

 

“Oh, shit,” she hissed, poking a few other buttons but getting the same result.

 

The robot legs listed to the side, like a drunk struggling to stay upright. The robot head lifted and looked at Sarah, the red lights swirling slowly, and not as bright as before.

 

“You’re runnin’ out of power,” she realised out loud.

The lights brightened and dimmed again. The two upper arms, the _wings_ as Sarah kept thinking of them, sagged downwards as well, and made the robot look like it was hunched over. As her breathing calmed, her mind raced, and she ran her eyes over the mechanical torso. The metal segments curved and overlapped like scales, and the interior softly glowed blue through the cracks.

If its power drained enough fast enough, she could still get ahead of the fire.

On the warm breeze, a single butterfly glided past. Sarah’s head turned to watch it, the sight so beautiful that it momentarily distracted her. It landed on her sleeve, the delicate blue wings vivid against the now grubby olive green, then it shivered and took flight, fluttering over to the robot and settling on a hand. The robot lifted it with an air of curiosity, the red lights glowing intensely for a moment as it seemed to study the insect, its head tilted to one side.

Sarah held her breath, waiting for the butterfly to be squished flat under those knife-like fingers or blown to dust with the robots weapon, but it merely examined the butterfly and then turned its head to watch as it flew on, a speck of blue getting smaller and smaller.

 

“Pretty, innit,” Sarah said out loud, wondering if the robot could understand her. The glowing face turned back towards her, the lights moving like ripples on water. She felt a glimmer of hope as she gazed back. If it could understand her, maybe it could be reasoned with.

Maybe, she could get out of this.

Down on the ground, the legs staggered sideways to squat underneath the other half of the robot, the wires sprouting out of the waist reaching upwards, a white-blue glow emanating from between the metal panels, and beginning to flicker. Sarah leaned sideways a little, legs wrapped around the branch, and saw the wires coming out of the bottom of the torso were straining downwards, waving back and forth like tentacles.

She thought about how it had moved when she first saw it back on the Resolute, the way it had seemed more _alive_ than a machine could be. The blue light ran along the wires and flared at the ends, then sputtered out.

 

“You can put yerself back together, yeah?” The red lights swirled and shimmered, and Sarah’s eyes darted over the softly glowing oval, trying to make some sense of the shifting lights. She slowly shifted her arms so she could feel about in her pockets. There had to be something she could...her fingers closed around the compact tool kit.

 

“My name’s Sarah. Sarah Manning. From Earth. Do you know...Earth?”

 

The robot was still watching her, slumped forward with all four arms hanging limply on the branch in front of it. Sarah kept talking.

 

“You could’ve killed me on the ship,” she observed, pulling the small box from the jacket pocket and opening it. “Dunno why the hell you attacked us…” The robot looked up and scanned what sky was visible between the treetops, as if avoiding her gaze. “And I don’t know if you can even understand me. But maybe - “, she pulled out what looked like a coiled length of flexible wire and gingerly touched a fingertip to it.

She hissed at the sharpness of it, and the robot’s head snapped back, the lights bouncing around the oval in a frenzy.

 

“‘m fine,” Sarah said automatically. Then she snorted, and muttered “Like you care. Jesus, talkin’ to a bloody tin can…” The lights settled into a gentle swirling pattern as the robot watched Sarah’s hands unwind the wire. There was a little rubber loop at either end for her thumbs. The fire was closing in and she was sweating - her back was already damp and her scalp itched. Ash was drifting past them, the distant crackling becoming a dull roar, the air growing hotter every second.

 

“Here goes nothin’,” she said out loud. The robots head tilted to the side in an oddly inquisitive manner as Sarah leaned forward and began to saw at the branch with the wire.

 

It was easier than she expected - the wood parted under the wire like she was cutting through bread. She was easily in reach of the robot now but the long arms only twitched a few times and then lay still. The oval face had darkened until the red lights only glowed in the centre, like dying embers. Below, the legs had fallen over to one side, but there was still a faint blue glow emanating from the wires. Flames were licking at the clawed feet, and at the base of the tree, and Sarah swore and sawed faster, jerking her hands back and forth. Sweat dripped down her face.

After what felt like hours, the branch splintered and fell, taking the half-robot with it into what was rapidly becoming an inferno.

Sarah leaned back against the trunk again, wiping the coat sleeves across her face. She looked up, wondering if it was worth trying to climb higher, and then down at the fire.

 

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. She pressed a button on her communicator but it was useless and she barely managed to resist the urge to smash it against the tree.

 

Something stirred in the flames and her eyes widened.

The robot stood. It was in one piece again, seeming even taller than she remembered, and it was looking up at her, the red lights of its face brightly zooming about. Then it jumped onto the lowest branch, balancing easily with its four arms, and Sarah chewed at her bottom lip, wondering if she’d just done something incredibly stupid (and not for the first time).

Before she could even finish the thought, the robot was perched beside her, studying her with those swirling lights. Sarah opened her mouth to scream, or swear, or maybe tell it to piss off and while the sound was still in her chest, she was picked up by those four metal arms and held firmly against the metal torso - slightly warm, she noticed, and humming - before the robot leapt all the way to the ground and began to run through the burning undergrowth. Sarah hesitated and then stretched her arms around the metallic body, bouncing up and down as the robot sped through the forest. Peeking through the metallic limbs, she could see the fire disappearing behind them.

When it was just a distant glow, the robot slowed, stopped, and carefully lowered Sarah to the ground. They were a fair way from the trees now, and the ground was rocky, with sparse greenery, and what was probably a colourful array of lichens, but what sunlight there had been was gone now and the moons made everything look muted.

 

She looked up at the lights that looked down at her.

 

“Uh,” she said, dry mouthed, “Thanks?” Her plan had been to get out of the fire and not much beyond that. She shoved her hands into the coat pockets and pushed a rock around with the toe of her boot. The robot reached out one arm towards her. The three elongated fingers were slightly longer than her head, and Sarah flinched, stepping back, wondering if she could pick up the rock before the robot attacked her.

The metal hand merely moved downwards, as if the robot was scanning her, before it straightened up to its full height, four arms outstretched to either side. The humming sound grew louder as the panels that made up the robots body began to move and slide into new positions.

Sarah’s mouth dropped open.

 

The neck shortened and shoulders grew. The arms on either side twisted together, fingers melding until it had two arms, and two hands with five fingers each. With a soft clicking, panels slotted together to shorten the torso, and the legs became less like a metal animal, the claw-like toes fusing and reshaping into boot-like feet.

Finally, it stood before Sarah, humming contentedly. It was still taller than her by a head, and the arms were still too long, but it looked almost human. _Well, human_ shaped _at least_ , she thought, trying to shrug away the tension in her shoulders. The little red lights continued to swirl in the oval, and as Sarah watched, the red grew paler, became a brilliant golden colour, and then slowly phased into blue. Now the ‘face’ was a mass of tiny silvery-blue dots, that settled into a gentle wave-like movement from the outside in.

Sarah let out a breath.

 _It wants to fit in_ , she thought, _like_ _an_ _alien chameleon or somethin’._ But the memory of that woman getting blasted off her feet back on the Resolute made her shudder and look away. The robot stood patiently, the blue lights of its face like an inverse halo.

It started beeping.

After a second, Sarah realised the beeping was coming from her communicator and the robot was _not_ actually going to explode. She answered, relieved to hear Don’s voice.

 

“You okay? Could see the fire from the top...couldn’t raise you.” He sounded relieved too, and a little out of breath.

 

“Yeah, it must’ve blocked the, uh, sensors or whatever.” She glanced up at the robot and then turned her back to it. “Did you find anyone else?”

 

“Yep. Spotted one of the Jupiters...not too far from where we came in...down the other side of the glacier.” Debbie clucked contentedly in the background. “Send you the coordinates. Meet us there.”

 

“Coordinates,” said Sarah doubtfully. “Right.”

 

Don wheezed laughter. Debbie joined in from the background, mocking Sarah with a _bok-bok-bok_.

 

“Just follow the comms,” he told her. “Get movin’!”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sarah snapped at her arm. A few seconds later, the communicator lit up again with numbers and symbols that looked like gobbledegook to her, but was transformed to compass points and distance as she watched.

 

“North-East, 5 miles,” she muttered, turning in a circle before squinting at the screen again. “North-East…”

 

The robot stirred, moving in a half-circle and pointing a long metal arm.

 

“That way, huh?” She stared at the robot, who tuned its head to look back at her, blue lights gently swirling. She sighed. “C’mon then.”

  
The landscape before her was silvery and not as dark as she’d expected. The one moon that was still hanging in the sky cast enough light for her to keep an eye on where she put her feet and it was fairly flat for the first forty minutes of walking. The robot strode along just behind her and to the side, making occasional quiet humming sounds, but otherwise remaining silent, apart from the heavy footfalls.

Sarah found herself talking to it - just random shite about earth - and it seemed to listen to her, head tilting to the side occasionally, but she eventually gave up, seeing as it didn’t answer, and also because she was out of breath. This was the furthest she’d had to walk in years...but at least she wasn’t pulling poisonous crap into her lungs with every breath like back home.

 After an hour, Sarah stopped and pointed.

 

“Those are lights, yeah?” She grinned. The air was cold again - they’d moved back towards the mountain of ice where the shuttle was - and she’d tightened the hood about her face and pulled the fuzzy-lined gloves on.

The robot looked at the lights, then at Sarah, then back at the lights. It mirrored her movements, pointing its own arm at the distant glow, and then lowering it when Sarah did.

She leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees and taking some deep breaths before recommencing walking.

The robots silence was making her nervous, and the closer they got to the others, the jumpier she felt. She’d blathered on to Don about killer alien robots, and now she was gonna turn up with one following her around like a puppy, and what if it went haywire again and starting blasting people?

Could it really be trusted?

Her jaw worked back and forth as she side-eyed the robot and it’s oddly serene face of blue lights. They were close enough to the Jupiter to see windows and the shadows of people in them. Sarah looked up at the sky, with all those strangely placed stars. How many people had survived? How many were lost? Her chest constricted with a sudden longing for a cuppa, one of Mrs S’s grown-up teas with a dash of whiskey in it.

 _Warms you up every way,_ she’d say.

She realized she’d stopped in her tracks and was staring at the windows. The robot had also halted, and turned its soft blue glowing face to her, as if waiting for instructions.

 

“Look, just...hang back a bit, yeah?” Sarah frowned at the blue lights as they began to move in a different pattern. “There’s other people...humans, here and they might - “ she flapped a hand. “Freak out or somethin’.”

 

The lights swirled, and then the robot stepped back. Its fingers twitched as it looked down at the ground, and after that it was still. Sarah walked around the Jupiter - they were much bigger than the shuttles the low-level workers were assigned to, built to accommodate families, even had separate bedrooms. From the outside, they looked to Sarah like a huge metal doughnut, without the hole in the middle. When she glanced back, the robot was following at a distance, face bright in the gloom.

When she found the entrance, she also found Don, hands wrapped around a steaming cup. He caught sight of her and rolled his eyes, but his voice gave away how worried he’d actually been.

 

“About time,” he called out. “C’mon in and taste the freeze-dried goodies.” He jumped back a little as Sarah heard the soft humming behind her and a soft blue light was cast across the ground. She held her hands out.

 

“‘S’okay, Don,” she said, cracking a grin. “It, uh, comes in peace?”

 

Don stared, mouth agape. His face screwed up.

 

“Is this one of those alien killer robots you were babbling about, Sarah,” he hissed, taking another step back and holding his mug up before him like a shield. “What the hell - I mean, what. How?”

 

“Far as I can tell, it crashed here as well.” She walked forwards. “It...saved me, Don. From the fire. I was trapped and it...got me out.” She shrugged and looked around at the robot. “It seems to like me? I dunno.”

 

“How _interesting_ ,” intoned another voice that was familiar in a way that make Sarah’s skin prickle.

 

The speaker was standing at the top of the short set of steps leading into the ship, a dark silhouette against the light. Her heels clicked on the metal as she stepped downwards, and as the light shifted and revealed her face, Sarah found herself noting that the lipstick that had looked black in the emergency lighting was actually very red and still perfectly applied, and that the smooth bob was blonde, and that the heels were very high.  
The woman smirked slightly, and Sarah had to reach inside and shake herself to stop from staring.

 

“Oh,” she managed, trying to sound flippant. “You.”

 

The woman took another step down. _Click._ Not an ounce of fear showed in her face, only a polite curiosity as her eyes flicked over the robot looming behind Sarah. Sarah could hear the quiet humming of it, and see the way the blue light that reflected off the ship rippled and shifted.

And then she heard it speak, the voice a mutated, rasping version of her own.

 

**_Danger - Sarah - Manning._ **

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my docs for almost a year, and I thought it was time to actually do something with it! Thanks for reading :)


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